Aghora Cult

Described by investigators as “a very open society,” the Aghora sect of the Hindu religion is nonetheless one that would surprise most westerners for its practice of ritual cannibalism. In June 2003 Reuters News Service reported the experience of Mike Yon, a Florida native and ex-Green Beret who visited India in search of ideas for a book he was planning. On September 5, 2002, Yon was present when an Israeli tourist drowned in the Ganges River near Rishikesh.

A team of Israeli divers sent to recover the body found another Caucasian corpse instead, and Yon
watched with dive-team leader Yigal Zur as a member of the Aghora cult approached the bloated body, placed a coin on the dead man’s exposed liver, and then tore off a piece of flesh and ate it on the spot. Widespread stories persist that the Aghoris are not mere scavengers but may be active predators in the mold of the Thugs who terrorized India from the 12th century until the latter 1800s. Like the Thugs, Aghoris worship Kali, the dark god of Hinduism, and they also revere Shiva (god of destruction and reproduction). As Yon told Reuters, “I heard rumors that European and American tourists were being taken. It sounds ludicrous, but where it is in India, anything goes.” As Yon explained the cult’s philosophy, white foreigners are viewed as possessing great Shakti—a creative
energy that Hindus believe flows directly from God. “If you sacrifice a rich or powerful person,” Yon
explained, “they have more Shakti. Children have more Shakti because they haven’t lived long.”

Yon discovered that the sect is not confined to India but also thrives in Nepal. Bribes of whiskey—
consumed by cultists as a sacrament—led Yon to an American convert, 52-year-old Texas native Gary Stevenson, now known as Kapal Nath. Adorned with dreadlocks, tattoos and a set of tom-toms made from infant human skulls, Nath sipped his liquor from a hollowed skull while briefing Yon on the proper method of cooking human flesh. “I like to take a fresh body, you know,” Nath told Yon, “maybe even an Israeli, cook ’em barbecue.”

The technique, Nath explained, involved a “big, big bucket of barbecue sauce, paintbrush, roller, you know.” Yon emerged from the interview with a disturbing view of Hinduism’s darker side. “The amazing thing,” he told Reuters, “is that they are doing it there in the open. A policeman was burning the body of his neighbor and cracked open the skull to release the soul. The policeman gave Nath some of the brains to eat.” Human brains, in fact, topped Nath’s list of favorite foods. A self-confessed serial killer, Nath admitted multiple murders during a conversation that Yon taped for posterity. His first victim, long before joining the cult, was apparently a man he shot in San Francisco sometime in the 1970s. Nath also boasted of stalking human prey on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where he lived from 1978 to 1994. As Yon recalled, “He said he liked to eat the brain and heart. He said human meat has the same taste as pork.”